


Not So Long Ago

by Drenagon



Series: Lessons Well Learnt [9]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Complete, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 16:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6384130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drenagon/pseuds/Drenagon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, not so long ago... a young hobbit wandered off in Erebor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not So Long Ago

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yankumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yankumi/gifts).



> This is for yankumi, much later than they were probably expecting, for which my apologies. The prompt was young Frodo with the Company, particularly Thorin, and preferably Thranduil as well. I hope this works for you.
> 
> If you enjoy please do let me know!

Not So Long Ago

‘Thorin, why are half of your guards hurtling through the corridors as if they are headless chickens?’ was Thranduil’s opening gambit for the morning. He had only arrived the day before, but already he and Thorin were back in the usual rhythm of their friendship.

By which Thorin meant that they had spent the entirety of their waking hours alternately teasing one another and driving everyone about them mad with their commentary on events.

As Thranduil had said, after the first time Dwalin threw a jug across the room, it was hardly their fault that the rest of the family could not keep up with them.

Unfortunately for Thranduil, events in the past hour or so had put Thorin in no mood for jesting.

‘Frodo went missing some time this morning,’ Thorin said, and immediately Thranduil straightened and the amused look left his face.

‘What happened?’ he asked with great concern. ‘You do not suspect…?’

‘No foul play,’ Thorin hurried to reassure him. ‘Dori had him for lessons for the morning. Frodo pays better attention to him than to the tutors Bilbo tried. Only one of the guildsmen arrived with an urgent problem and Dori had to take Frodo down to the Guild Hall with him while he sorted it. Dori left him in his study with a book but when he came back Frodo was gone.’

‘Oh Valar, Bilbo must be tearing his hair out and Dori will be frantic,’ Thranduil murmured. ‘Let me go and find Legolas and we will set our people to looking too. Yours know the mountain better, but there is very little mine cannot see if they set their minds to it.’

‘Thank you, bâhuh,’ Thorin replied, feeling nothing but relief. ‘I wish to look myself, but I cannot be seen to be abandoning the morning’s duties when there are already so many searching. The Company are already out looking.’

‘Fear not,’ Thranduil said comfortingly, ‘he will be found. They are terrors at this age, as well you remember, but Frodo’s easy enough to recognise. Someone will have seen him.’

Thorin tried to smile, knowing that the thought should be a reassurance. The way his mind jumped to how very vulnerable that made their youngest was just the result of paranoia, he told himself.

Frodo would be fine.

Until Bilbo got hold of him, of course.

***

‘When I get my hands on you, Frodo Baggins, you’ll rue the day you ever arrived in this cursed stone rabbit-warren,’ Bilbo fumed as he inspected every nook and cranny of the library for his nephew. Frodo knew better than this, he _knew_ that he was to go nowhere without one of the Company or their family to keep watch over him. He was too young to be alone, especially in a place with so many passages leading on and on and on. The damned walkways did not even have _railings_ , for the love of all that was good!

‘Easy there, Bilbo,’ Bofur told him gently. ‘It’s no more than we’ve all done in our time. Tell me you never wandered off from your Ma when you were a wee one.’

‘Of course I did not!’ Bilbo protested, though it was a blatant untruth and his acknowledgement of that fact could be heard clearly in his tone. ‘I had more sense.’

‘Course you did,’ Bofur replied, tone still gentle but also knowing now. ‘Something shiny caught your eye, didn’t it? And you wandered off without even thinking about it and the next thing you knew she was nowhere to be found.’

‘It wasn’t shiny, thank you very much,’ Bilbo said haughtily. ‘It was a Chalk Hill Blue. Not all of us are obsessed with shiny things.’

‘Anything can be shiny in its own way,’ was Bofur’s only comment on the topic. Bilbo watched as he stuck his head into the last study carrel on his side of the library and shook his head. ‘No, if he’s hiding it’s not in here. Come on, we’d best get back to Nori and tell him this room’s clear. He can tell us where else needs searching.’

Bilbo, who had believed up until now that Frodo must surely be in this room, his favourite in all of Erebor, found that he could not respond. Instead he stood stock still, clutching a nearby table, as a tear rolled down his cheek and he tried desperately not to sob.

Luckily, Bofur was not half as oblivious as everyone tended to think he was.

‘Hey now,’ he said, catching Bilbo up in a hug and letting Bilbo lean on him for a long moment. ‘None of that. He’s only got himself a little lost, nothing to be fretting about. If I had a gold piece for every time one of Bombur’s lot has gone missing I’d be a rich dwarf.’

‘You _are_ a rich dwarf,’ Bilbo pointed out, voice a little watery.

‘Exactly,’ Bofur said, as if that response made perfect sense. ‘So if we need to pay the whole mountain to come to a standstill for the day while we search for our missing dwobbit, I’ve got quite enough money to do so.’

‘He is _not_ a _dwobbit_ ,’ Bilbo huffed, regaining his equanimity, and with it the exasperated demeanour he usually showed to the world. He did wish the others would not persist in convincing Frodo that his inclusion in the family made him part-dwarf.

‘Hmmm,’ was Bofur’s only response. Bloody dwarves.

***

‘Kíli? What on Arda are you doing?’ Thranduil asked disbelievingly as he entered the armoury. ‘I do not imagine Bilbo is going to be terribly pleased to find you took the opportunity to have a nap whilst Frodo was missing.’

‘Oh, but you see he’s not missing anymore,’ Kíli said with false cheer. ‘I know exactly where he is. The only trouble is, he won’t come down.’

‘Come down?’ Thranduil questioned, confusion writ large upon his face. Then, suddenly, the pieces slotted into place and he look up at the narrow ledge above the sword racks that Kíli was staring at from his prone position.

‘Ah,’ Thranduil said quietly.

‘Hmm,’ Kíli agreed.

‘You have…?’

‘Tried it.’

‘How did he even…?’

‘Not a clue.’

‘Ah.’

‘I’m not coming down,’ a desperate, teary voice called from above. A head peeped forward over the edge of the ledge, Frodo’s big blue eyes following his curly hair into view. ‘You can’t make me!’

‘Frodo, Bilbo isn’t going to kill you,’ Kíli called back, with the weary tone of one who has made this argument several times before.

‘Yes, he is!’ Frodo answered. ‘I’m not coming down!’

‘Oh dear,’ Thranduil sighed. ‘We seem to be at an impasse.’

‘Yes,’ was Kíli’s reply. He gave a heavy sigh. ‘I think I might need to call Uncle. Frodo won’t dare disobey if Uncle tells him to come down.’

‘But if we do that then it is absolutely certain that Bilbo will hear of Frodo’s stubbornness, and he will be even more cross that Thorin was called away from his duties,’ Thranduil concluded.

‘That’s why I’m still here,’ Kíli agreed. ‘That and because I don’t want to take my eye off him for a second.’

All was silent for a moment as dwarf and elf pondered the troubles of their situation. Then it was Thranduil’s turn to sigh.

‘Keep him distracted for me,’ he told Kíli as he undid the clasp of his robe, leaving himself clad in only breeches, tunic and boots. Kíli gave him an odd look but, well-trained by Legolas over the years, did not object.

Thranduil moved silently away from his previous position, stood over Kíli in the middle of the room, and made for the sword rack on the opposite side of the room from Frodo. As he did so he could hear Kíli calling up to Frodo, drawing his attention.

Approaching the sword rack, Thranduil sped up and then leapt, using the top of the rack to propel himself onto the ledge above. Having done so, he ran as quietly as he could around the edge of the room until he reached Frodo’s position. With one quick movement he had the young hobbit tucked safely in his arms, then he turned and jumped.

‘Somewhat quicker than sending for Thorin, I think,’ he told Kíli, letting his mirth reach his eyes when the young Prince began to laugh.

‘Now, dear one,’ Thranduil said firmly to a now-sobbing Frodo, ‘that is quite enough of that. You are making all this fuss over nothing. Yes, your Uncle Bilbo will be displeased with you, and well you know you deserve it. You wandered off when you knew you were not supposed to and have had all of your family in uproar all morning. Not to mention how upset your Uncle Dori must be. That does _not_ mean that anyone is going to do anything so dramatic as try to kill you, which would most certainly defeat the point of finding you in the first place. Your Uncle will expect you to say sorry, and quite possibly he will give you a punishment, but all of this sobbing as if you expect to be beaten is very unfair to him.’

As he made this speech Thranduil had set Frodo on the floor and crouched down before him so he could meet Frodo’s eyes. Already Frodo’s tears were trailing off and he was blinking the last of them away, looking over at Kíli as he did so.

‘He’s right, Frodo,’ Kíli said, now solemn again. ‘Bilbo will only give you a scolding and tell you what privileges you have lost, nothing more than that. And he’ll only get more upset if he finds you were deliberately hiding. So, what will it be?’

‘I need to find Uncle Bilbo and say I’m sorry. And to Uncle Dori and… and all the other Uncles and Aunts as well,’ Frodo said after a short pause.

‘Exactly,’ Kíli said, smiling at him now and reaching his arms out so Frodo could tumble into them for a hug. ‘Silly lad,’ he continued gently. ‘You know we all love you more than anything.’

‘I know,’ Frodo answered. ‘’M sorry, Kíli.’

‘Forgiven,’ Kíli said instantly. ‘Just make sure you don’t do it again. We don’t make these rules because we think it’s funny. Not most of them, anyway.’ He tickled Frodo slightly during the last statement and produced a little giggle.

‘Come along, then,’ Thranduil commanded, unable to help the wide smile that stole over his face at the sight of them. To think he’d see the day when Kíli was the responsible adult in a situation. ‘The sooner we go, the sooner it is done.’

Squaring his shoulders, Frodo headed towards the door with a determined expression on his face, King and Prince following along in his wake.

***

That night, with apologies duly given and Frodo’s month-long grounding firmly in place – extended, after some thought on Bilbo’s part, to include no trips to see his Uncles and Aunts for two weeks – the Company and their friends relaxed after dinner. Frodo, well and truly chastened by his earlier adventures, had firmly ensconced himself in Thorin’s lap. Possibly because Thorin was the only member of the extended family who had not yet had words with him on the subject of running off.

Not that these words had been harsh ones, or even particularly long. Dori had settled simply for, ‘Do not ever scare me like that again,’ and hugging Frodo for the best part of an hour. Frodo hadn’t looked as if he was suffering greatly from this treatment.

Now, Thorin simply held his nephew quietly and stroked a hand over his hair, as he still did with Kíli and Fili on the occasions when they were in need of comfort.

‘Uncle Thorin?’ Frodo said quietly after some minutes.

‘Yes, Frodo?’ Thorin’s voice was equally quiet.

‘Will you tell me about the fight with Azog again?’

‘Have you not heard that story often enough to be bored of it, akhûnith?’ Thorin asked with some amusement. This would be the third telling of the month, by his reckoning, and that was only from Thorin. Fíli told it much better, and would doubtless also have been petitioned.

‘No,’ Frodo said firmly. ‘I have to hear it so I can do the same thing when _I_ am fighting orcs.’

Somewhere in the corners of Thorin’s mind, a lamp had suddenly been lit.

‘Is that why you were in the armoury, Frodo? Did you mean to practice?’ Frodo had been given a short sword, forged by Kíli and Thorin, for his recent birthday. However, Bilbo had insisted that he only receive one lesson a week until he was older, stating that learning to use his mind needed to come before learning to hack at things indiscriminately.

Dwalin had, of course, taken great umbrage at the idea that he would teach any pupil of his to ‘hack indiscriminately’ at anything. At that point Thorin had simply stepped out of the way and left them to it.

‘Yes,’ Frodo murmured, recalling Thorin to the here and now. ‘I won’t be ready if I don’t practice. I need to be ready.’

‘Oh Frodo,’ Thorin said gently. ‘You do not need to be ready just yet, akhûnith. That is what your Uncles and cousins and Aunt Dís and I are here for. Dwalin will tell you when your training is done, and then it will be your turn to defend Erebor. Try not to worry about it too much until then, hmm? For me.’

Frodo looked up at him, big solemn eyes uncertain. Thorin wondered if he and the Company had put this worry there, with all their stories of war and evil, or if it was simply Frodo’s natural gravity that made him take such cares upon himself.

‘We can take care of things for now, sweet lad, I promise,’ Thorin added, trying to make that uncertainty go away. To his relief, and with a certain amount of pride, he saw it fade entirely as Frodo looked at him.

‘Alright,’ Frodo agreed, already seeming happier. He paused for a moment, then added, ‘You’ll still tell me the story?’

‘Yes, Frodo,’ Thorin found himself laughing deeply. ‘I will still tell you the story.’ Frodo squirmed a little on his lap, then nodded to show he was ready.

‘Not so long ago….’

******


End file.
